


The Oregon Mistake

by afterism



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Magic, Sibling Bonding, Unexpected Portals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 15:45:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2778743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterism/pseuds/afterism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Okay. Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained, number eighty seven. The doors. They just appeared overnight, no one knows why, no one dares open them. Because I told them not to."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Oregon Mistake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nothingofnote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingofnote/gifts).



> For the prompt _Two newcomers arrive in town suspiciously like the two main characters of one of Mabel's new favorite tv shows._  
>  I tweaked it a bit, but I hope you like it, nothingofnote! The parody of a certain show you mentioned in your prompt is made with the utmost affection.

"Okay. Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained, number eighty seven. The doors. They just appeared overnight, no one knows why, no one dares open them. Because I told them not to. They sprung up out of nowhere - unlike this huge circle of giant mushrooms Grunkle Stan made me hammer into place. Those aren't even slightly real. Mabel! Don't lean on any of them, they're not stable -"

"Ew, what's this slimy gunk on them?"

"I don't know, Soos found it somewhere. It makes them glow. Don't touch it." 

"Ooh, it's sparkly. And _tingly_."

"And in three minutes it will feel like burning. Just, urgh, wipe it off on something. Not _me_! Mabel!"

 

\----

 

There are leaves in her hair. At least the whip-strong breeze seems to be doing a good job of picking them out as they stagger back to the Mystery Shack.

"Dude, you missed one," Wendy says, and reaches over to pluck a dry, crunchy leaf out from under her hairband. It tries to disintegrate between her fingers.

"Thanks," Mabel says, and tries to hop up the steps before realising her legs feel like thin, brittle branches. The kind that don't like bending. "Urgh."

"I hear you," Wendy says, and groans as she climbs up to the porch and pushes open the gift shop door. The wind snaps past and shoves it out of her hands, rushing in ahead. Something crashes to the floor.

"Oh, _come on_ ," Dipper whines, out of sight.

There's a sprawling mess of boxes when they step inside, tumbled across the shop floor, corners crumpled and unsold merchandise spilling out. Clouds of dust puff into the hot, stirred air. Dipper half-heartedly kicks at a plushy, crook-eyed frogalope, and sneezes.

"Aww," Wendy says, as Mabel finds the sudden energy to start laughing, her heart still racing even as every muscle burns sluggish. Dipper turns to them glaring - then his eyes fly wide.

"Wait, what happened to you two?" he asks, his eyes drawing narrow and tight as he skims over them; scuffed shoes and dusty knees and hair that never met a hedge it didn't like. Pssh, Mabel thinks. _Detectives_.

She glances at Wendy, who shrugs, mouth sealed and unhelpful. Right. She should probably mention it. He gets weird when she doesn't tell him about stuff.

"Er," she starts, scratching at the floor with her shoe. "Remember when you told us _not_ to go through those doors that appeared in the woods?" 

"Oh, no," Dipper says, folding his arms. "Please tell me you didn't." 

Mabel tries to fiddle with the sprawl of hair over her shoulder and nearly gets her fingers stuck in the tangles.

"Yeah, we totally ran straight through one," Wendy says, and looks at Mabel, and smirks in a lopsided kind of way that Mabel can see but Dipper can't. Yeah, that's right. They have secrets. _Girl Secrets_. 

Wendy walks over to the counter and hops up with just a slight wince. Mabel watches in tired awe; she thinks about following, but her feet aren't listening to her brain anymore. Rude.

"But, on the plus side," Wendy continues, hooking her ankle over her knee, "All the flashing lights and weird smoke were only, like, low-rent level of weird for here. It's cool, dude. We're fine," she says, pulling off a shoe and shaking a few twigs out of it. A small pebble hits the floor with a clunk.

" _What_?" Dipper says. Mabel tugs her hand out of her hair and flips it mostly behind her. ("Ow. ow," she says, as a few knots get caught around her earring.)

Wendy laughs, tugging her shoe back on. "Kidding, short stuff. We were kinda being chased by this giant bird thing and the only way out was through the doorway wedged between two trees, so we ran through. Literally nothing happened, apart from getting lost and not really being able to stop running for like, an hour," she says, unhooking her legs and leaning back on her hands. Mabel gives up on her hair, wiggles her toes (they will always obey her) and considers the distance between the floor and the top of the counter. 

"Really? Because everything I've read about mysteriously appearing doors says _never open them_ ," Dipper says, as Mabel drags herself the few feet to stand next to Wendy's legs. She can totally do this. She just has to put her hands here, and here, and then - urgh, no, no jumping. "What were you even doing out there?"

"Oh, you know, girl stuff," Mabel says, slumping against the counter.

Wendy grins. "I was teaching her how to climb trees just using a belt," she says, light and casual.

"I met a woodpecker!" Mabel says, because heck yes, the day hasn't been a _total_ waste. "And then there was this giant woodpecker, and then there was running, and the doors, and blah blargh boring stuff we're back. And kinda exhausted," she says, and slumps again. Why must everything hurt?

"You're saying you went through a probably-cursed door and nothing else came through? You didn't go anywhere else? Are you sure this is the same reality you were in this morning?"

Wendy leans back, feeling under the far edge of the counter for something. "Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure this is the exact same desk it was yesterday," Wendy says, and then leans a little further and pulls out a hairbrush, passing it down to Mabel when she straightens up.

"It's so beautiful," Mabel whispers, because it's a gift from Wendy, and immediately gets it stuck in her hair. "I think they really might just be doors, bro. No mystery at all."

Dipper frowns, rubbing his chin. "Well, I guess if you're okay, they can't be that bad..." 

"Good call," Wendy says, and slides off the counter. "Wanna watch TV while Grunkle Stan's out leading the new twilight woodland trail of mysteriously large and slimy mushrooms? The next rerun of _Extramundane_ should be on a minute," she says, nudging Mabel with a hip before heading out the room. 

"Heck yes," Mabel says, punching the air, and then straightens up with a low whine and follows her. 

"Extramundane?" Dipper asks, wandering after them as Wendy throws herself sideways onto the armchair and Mabel sinks down to sit cross-legged on the sweet, sweet floor. Who cares if it's kind of gritty and smells like compost if you put your face too close to it? It doesn't demand anything of her legs, other than eventual numbness.

The TV clicks on.

"Oh, yeah, it's about these two sisters that travel the country in their classic Cadillac and fight, like, crime and evil and stuff. It's pretty cool," Wendy says, somewhere behind her. 

"Huh," Dipper says, and then Mabel shushes him as the opening credits start.

An overlaid chaos of neon bright images all flash up at once. There's an impression of glitter. A shot of a bulbous, pale turquoise car that shoots across the screen lingers, the tusk-like spikes on its bumper leaving silver trails in its wake as the backdrop fades to white; the title card flashes up, backlit neon-pink.

 _Extramundane_ , the TV whispers, before the words flicker away.

Dipper rubs his eyes. "What? That's so unrealistic. How would they even afford that car?"

"They fund it by knitting cute sweaters and making their own jewellery out of discarded occult junk," Wendy says, as Mabel draws her knees up in time with a screech of brakes from the TV. "There's _a lot_ of diamanté."

On the screen, the car door creaks open. A woman with a blonde undercut and a leather jacket covered in dazzling plastic gems slides into shot.

"She's everything I want to be," Mabel whispers, reaching for the screen.

 _There's been reports of strange, creepy noises coming from inside that pet shop_ , another woman says, barely looking up from her phone as she unfolds out of the car. Her hair glints copper in the sunlight. Her pale fluffy sweater sparkles.

 _Oh. You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?_ the blonde one says, grinning over at her.

 _It's never going to be ghost kittens, Gina. They don't exist,_ she says, and hip-barges the door shut, leaning against the car as she taps at her phone.

 _Buzzkill, Sandy. Let's go,_ Gina says, and snatches Sandy's phone out of her hands as she struts past.

 _Hey!_ Sandy shouts, and chases after her, digging her fingers into Gina’s arm as she grabs at her phone; they stumble into the shop as Gina laughs and Sandy snarls. The owner looks up, pale and dead-eyed.

Dipper narrows his eyes at the screen, and opens his mouth. Mabel shushes him.

"Hey, kids!" Grunkle Stan calls, somewhere in the distance. Wendy groans, her head falling back to hit the arm of the chair. "Get in here! These boxes were supposed to be piled up hours ago!"

"Gotta go," Dipper says, and he's up and gone in seconds, in the opposite direction to the gift shop.

 _Yeah, we're just gonna..._ Gina says on screen, pointing a thumb over her shoulder and backing away. 

"Oh, this bit is so good," Wendy says, and Mabel hugs her knees tighter. She's only known about it for a week, but she loves this show almost as much as she loves Waddles. Her oversized heart has room for _everything._

 

\---

 

In the night, just for a second, something bright and loud happens in the forest. Mabel mutters something, _blankets_ and _Waddles_ , and turns over in her sleep.

 

\---

 

The next morning dawns hot and clear, the sky a bright, burning blue as the day settles in to a promise of unbearable heat.

"Turn it off," Dipper whines, muffled, and throws his pillow at the window.

"Ugh," Mabel agrees, and kicks off her blankets, rolling over until she's face-down in her pillow.

There's a distant rumble of thunder, like a too-fast truck hitting a bump on a far-off road. Outside and nearby, a door slams.

"Wait, what - what is this? Why are there piles of owls everywhere?" Grunkle Stan's voice drifts up, like a hacksaw being juggled. Could she do that? It could be her next act: Mabel and Waddles; juggling extraordinaires! She throws pigs! She throws hacksaws! She throws sock puppets!

"Huh?" Dipper says, and then, "Nevermind, it's too hot to care."

"Kids!" Grunkle Stan shouts, directed at their cracked-open window. "I'm going down to the store for... things. Mabel's in charge until I get back."

"Ha!" Mabel says, punching sideways at the air, and then lets her arm flop back down to the mattress. It bounces and hangs over the side. "I command you to fan me."

"No," Dipper says, and turns over. The car starts with a spluttering cough and a faint smell of burning, that lingers even as the sound of the engine fades away. Mabel wrinkles her nose and forces herself to roll out of bed.

She hits the floor - the hard, covered in socks and hay and old crumpled bits of paper, floor - and stares up at the ceiling for a while as she summons the willpower to move. She can do this. She is a strong, independent girl who could totally kick a re-animated pet shop owner in his evil undead face if she had to.

Her arms shift a bit.

"Are you making dust angels again?"

"I'm leaving my indelible mark," Mabel says, and sets her jaw as she peels herself off the floor.

There's a scramble for clean clothes and a hairbrush and a detour to the bathroom when everything turns out to be dusty to the point of _ew_. By the time she gets back to their shared room Dipper is out of bed and somewhat dressed in shorts and an unburnt v-neck top, sitting on the floor and flipping through the journal.

"Hey, do you wanna -" he starts, before the doorbell cuts him off. Mabel darts across the room and starts rummaging through a drawer, searching for a hairband. 

"I'll just get that, shall I?" Dipper sighs, and drops the journal on his bed as he gets up.

"I will be with you in a second, bro!" Mabel calls, swooshing her hair back and fixing it in place with a glittery yellow band. He's gone, his footsteps trailing off down the stairs, and Mabel points her loaded fingerguns at the mirror (she is _rocking_ that hedgehog sweater today) and hurries after him.

The front door is open when she gets to the top of the staircase in the hall; it blocks her view of whoever's outside but Dipper is still holding onto the handle, staring up at something with his mouth half-open and his eyebrows low and tight. Mabel definitely doesn't hesitate, or anything, but she possibly considers that she left her grappling hook by her bed, and maybe she should go get it -?

"Hey, kid," a woman says, and wait. Hold on. She _knows_ that voice. "I'm Agent Fisher, this is Agent Portman. We're from the US Wildlife Service. Can we come in?"

"What?" Dipper says, faintly, and Mabel bounds down the stairs.

"Oh my god," Mabel says, when she sees them. "It's _you_."

"Yeah, we get that a lot. The wildlife service is a pretty wild ride," the blonde with the undercut says. The redhead at her side flicks her eyes to the porch roof for a moment, like she's checking for woodworm, and then looks at Mabel and smiles.

"Have you noticed anything weird around here?"

Mabel can't move. Her eyes feel kind of stingy, and her mouth might be hanging open, but _Sandy_ is _looking at her_ and _saying words with her mouth_.

"Yes," Dipper says, and tries to shut the door. Gina's foot gets in the way.

"There's been reports of an escaped tiger with a prosthetic arm strapped to it. Mind if we have a look around?" Gina says, and starts to push the door open with one hand as Dipper tries to casually force it back.

Mabel blinks, before she shoves Dipper out the way and yanks the door wide open. 

"Of course not! Come in! _I would do anything to hang with you guys_ ," Mabel says, fierce and unblinking, and Gina grins at her as she steps over the threshold. She must be heavier than she looks because the floor rumbles strangely for a second, a faint noise like a distant peal of thunder.

" _Mabel_ ," Dipper hisses, but she's already leading them through to the TV room.

"Welcome! Take anything you like!" Mabel exclaims, flinging her arms wide. 

"That headband is the bomb," Gina says, with a wink, as Sandy looks around, lingering on the skull next to the armchair. Mabel inflates with delight, pressing her bunched fists to her mouth.

"So, you were saying about weird things happening?" Sandy says, her eyes on Dipper beside her. Someone has their hand around her wrist and is trying to tug her away, but Mabel has bigger things to hold her attention. Like - oh my gosh, is that -?

"Here? Ha. Ha, no, nothing weird ever happens here. I need to talk to my sister," Dipper says, but Mabel has become one with the carpet, staring at the thing Gina just pulled out out of her pocket - it looks like Frankenstein's iPod, all ducktape and glitter and a welded-on aerial.

"Just switching up my jams," Gina says, when she glances over and catches Mabel's wide, fixated eye.

"It's the _thing_ ," Mabel whispers, and Dipper stops trying to distract her from the greatest event of her life for a moment; they both watch as Gina casually nudges Sandy's shoulder and angles the dim screen of the thing towards her.

"These readings are the same we found in the forest," Sandy says, her voice hushed and low and not nearly quiet enough. "Something hella strange is happening, sis."

Gina shoves the thing back in her pocket as Sandy glances over her shoulder, and darts her gaze between her and Dipper; he's all tense and probably frowning beside her. No wonder Sandy gives him that split-second odd look and then turns to her, smiling. She's totally the coolest twin.

"You sure you've seen nothing out of the ordinary?" Sandy asks, nudging Gina for no reason at all. "Weird lights, strange noise, stuff like that?"

This is it, Mabel, her inner voice says. This is your chance to join the the ultimate crime-and-evil-and-junk-fighting team. "Have I! We have a whole jour-"

Dipper yanks her sideways. "Sorry, gotta talk to you. Upstairs. Right now," Dipper says, and carries on pulling her along in the momentum of Mabel tripping over her own feet. 

"I will be right back!" Mabel calls behind her, as she's dragged out into the hall. " _Dipper_ ," she hisses, almost twisting out of his grip; she gets her feet under her as they hit the stairs, the beat of his footsteps loud and echoing as he pulls her with him.

Gina's voice floats after them, caught in their wake. "You used to be that adorable," she says, light and grinning.

"No," Sandy says, still just audible. "Let's keep --" Mabel hears, before the attic door slams shut behind them and Dipper whirls around, letting go of her arm.

"Okay, is it just me, or are those two straight out of the show you were watching yesterday? What was it, Super-something? Extra-natural?"

"Oh my gosh, you noticed too? I thought it was just me!" Mabel says, and presses her hands over her mouth again. "This is the best day _ever_."

"Oh, no. This is bad. Really bad," Dipper says, backing away like there's never been an explosion of marbles over the attic floor or anything. Jeez.

"Yeah it is. We left them downstairs all by themselves! They might _leave_ ," Mabel says, and blinks, and stares past him - because _Sandy and Gina_ are in her house and they can't go anywhere until she's asked them how they get those huge neon-bright plastic gems to stick to wool and what they think of her macaroni masterpieces and also how to get zombie gunk out of her favourite skirt and -

She grabs the door handle.

"No! Mabel!" Dipper shouts, and catches her arm, jerking her back. "They're not _real_!"

"They clearly are," Mabel says, waving him off with both hands flapping. "Gina smells like hot glue and she said I was _adorable_."

Dipper exhales roughly, and scrubs a hand across his face. "No, I mean - there's definitely two people downstairs who look exactly like those characters, but there's no way it's actually them," he says, passionately convincing, to the floor. "They're fictional. Not real. It's not possible."

"Pssh," Mabel says. " _That's_ not possible? Last week you said were-rabbits weren't real just because there wasn't any mention of them in your stupid journal," she says, and then spots the stupid journal, still sitting on his stupid bed. She narrows her eyes and marches across the room.

"That was just bad timing," Dipper says, folding his arms as she strides past. "Hey! What are you doing?"

Mabel snatches the book up and hugs it to her chest, the edges digging into her arms. "They're investigating something, duh. Where's the blacklight?"

"Nuh-uh, no way. The journal is way too important to let them look at it," Dipper says, and he's across the room and trying to grab it back, curling his hands around the corners and tugging. "We have no idea what they are, or why they're here. They might be shapeshifters or clones or gnomes in disguise again -" Mabel grimaces and holds on tighter, "Whatever it is, they're dangerous."

"Sandy and Gina aren't _dangerous_. They're the good guys!" Mabel exclaims, her grip loosening for a second and Dipper wins; she's left grabbing at the empty air. She balls up her hands and glares at him.

"They're not real!" Dipper shouts, clinging onto the journal like it might try to wriggle out of his grip. "Something really weird is happening, Mabel. We have to figure out what they are, and how to send them back to wherever they came from." 

"My _dreams_ ," Mabel hisses, everything sharp, and then the fight drains out of her - she turns on the ball of her foot like a lock-jointed puppet and falls face-first onto her mattress. "Why don't I ever get to keep the things I love?" she muffles into the bedcovers.

"Because Gravity Falls is weird," Dipper says, resigned, but at least there's that tang of apology in his voice. He gets it, sometimes. "Come on, Mabel, I need your help. I can't do this without you."

Mabel breathes into the mattress, and remembers why she doesn't like sleeping on her front.

"Fine. Plubh, plubh," Mabel says, spitting out hair as she sits up. "But you don't know them like I do. They _are_ the real Sandy and Gina."

"Sure, sure. Let's just - go downstairs, and find out what they want, and where they came from. And then we'll figure out how to get rid of them." Dipper carefully sets the journal on the table under the window, and holds out a hand to Mabel. After a pause, she takes it, and lets him pull her off the bed and onto her feet.

"Mystery twins?" Dipper says, looking at her hopefully.

"Mystery twins," Mabel agrees, and holds up her hand for a fistbump.

 

\---

 

The TV room is empty. The kitchen, the gift shop and the front yard are equally deserted - apart from the pile of owls, but they silently ignore that. The owls stare at them, unblinking.

"Where did they go?" Mabel wonders, peering into the distance. There are no clouds but a warm, dry wind whips past her, tugging her sleeves towards the forest; she watches the leaves chitter and scatter in the breeze, tumbling between the trees and out of sight as the ground trembles, just for a moment.

"Hey, you don't think those doors -" Mabel starts, picking at her cuff.

Dipper slaps a hand against his forehead, and groans. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" he says, and grabs Mabel's hand, pulling her into a jump off the porch and running into the woods. "Maybe they went back that way."

Mabel gasps. "They can't leave already! I haven't even asked them to sign my sweater!" she says, hopping over a tree root and letting go of Dipper's hand to bat a branch out of the way.

"That really isn't - oh God why are there legs sticking out of that bush," Dipper says, flat and horrified and stumbling to a halt as the path smooths out into a small clearing. Mabel bounces against his side. "I - is that duck solving a murder?"

There's a duck next to the legs, closely peering at the bite marks littered across the skin. After a beat it raises its beak, its eyes narrowed under the brim of the tiny deerstalker hat perched on its head. " _Quack-quack_ ," it says.

"Aww! Check it out, duck hat!" Mabel says, snatching it up and jamming the deerstalker over her hairband. She narrows her eyes, looking for clues. 

"Give the duck his hat back," Dipper sighs, as Mabel squints until she can't see - she sticks out her tongue and blows a raspberry at him, but takes the hat off and places it back on the duck's head. It quacks, once and possibly angry, and waddles into the bush.

"Er. Let's keep going," Dipper says. "Is it just me, or does this forest get weirder every time we go in it?"

The heat pushes down as they walk deeper into the woods; Mabel tugs off her sweater and ties it around her waist, fanning her face with a single hand. It's not far to the doors - they pass through a gap in the circle of fake mushrooms and half a minute later they find the first few scattered among the trees, propped between the trunks or standing free and without support.

Most are still closed.

"Do you hear that?" Mabel asks, tipping her head to the side. "It sounds like... singing."

 

\---

 

A minute after that, and they're running again.

"I thought you always wanted a talking horse!" Dipper calls, mouth stretched into a grimace as they charge through the undergrowth.

"Not when all it talks about is wanting to eat me!" Mabel cries, and half-screams when there's a neighing somewhere close and out of sight. "Did you shut the door?"

"I don't know! There may have been a hoof in the way! Keep going!"

Well, duh. The forest floor shakes beneath them; a few seconds as the world shifts and jerks like a tumble-drier race and Mabel hits the ground with a cry, Dipper sprawling beside her until the earth stops trying to shake them off it. They find their feet quicker than hooves can - there's an angry neigh behind them, fixed in place, that fades and shrinks as they charge through the trees.

"Oh God," Dipper pants, as his run slips into slow motion, his feet barely leaving the ground. "Are we clear?"

"Nurhg," Mabel says, bent double, her hair flipped in front of her face. Thank goodness she wore the hedgehog sweater today; she's getting rid of the pony ones as soon as they get back to the shack.

Something moves out of the corner of her eye, something the other side of a bush, but it's black and orange and stripy and definitely not a pony, so Mabel sucks in another breath and lets it go without saying anything.

"Guhh," she says, trying to stand up straight. 

"So it's definitely the doors," Dipper says, brushing dirt off his arms and fixing his hat level. "I have a theory -"

"Is it were-bunnies? Because I'm not ready to throw out my rabbit sweater. Or my carrot one," Mabel says. She double-checks the knot of her sweater's arms around her waist.

"What? No. I have a theory about the earthquakes - did you notice they got worse when the ponies were on our side of the door?"

"Well, yeah. Kinda hard not to, when the ground was like, wahhh, and we were like, waaahh," Mabel says, waving her arms out in front of her. She would make the best earthquake impressionist. Is that a thing? She's gonna make it a thing.

"Right. They don't belong in this world, and the more things that come through those portals, the worse it gets. I think reality itself might be breaking down. We have to get all the things that should be the on other side of the doors back to where they came from, before our whole _world_ collapses!"

Mabel looks at him.

"Waaaaah," she says, waving her arms again. She is being _so_ helpful.

 

\----

It's too hot and too tiring to run anymore; the air is bone dry but Mabel's hair is sticking to her skin.

"All we need to do is find where those two went, and figure out what door they came through," Dipper says, ticking off objectives on his fingers. "That shouldn't be too hard, right?"

"Yeah, I guess. It's not like they've got their car," Mabel says, hopping across the zebra-stripes of light that cut through the trees. She gets it but, ugh, why do they have to go right _now_?

The shack looms, a jigsaw shape in the distance as they find their way through the forest, and there's two figures outside when they finally break past the tree line. Soos is raking leaves off the road, pushing them into a pile that the wind keeps dipping into and spilling out in trails.

"Hey, dudes," Wendy says, kicking at the dirt as she sits on the edge of the porch. "Whoa, what happened to you guys?"

"Earthquake," Dipper sighs.

"Oh, yeah, that last one nearly threw me off my bike. You okay?"

"Only my heart is bruised," Mabel says, and rubs her arm. "Ow. Also my elbow."

Wendy pats the floorboard beside her. "What's up?"

Mabel jumps up and rests her chin in her hands. Her elbows dig into her thighs, but she's too forlorn to move. "The Hexham sisters were _right here_ but now they have to go back before, like, the world explodes or some junk."

Wendy glances at Dipper. "Yeah, that about sums it up," he says, pulling himself up beside Mabel.

"Huh," Wendy says. "Actually explodes, or just, like, metaphorically?"

"Actually," Dipper says, as Mabel sighs. "Things that only belong on TV are coming through the doors in the forest, and if they don't go back soon Gravity Falls, and possibly the world, is doomed. Er, you haven't seen them around, have you?"

"A hot blonde girl with an undercut and a redhead in a sparkly sweater? I'm pretty sure I would have noticed."

"Oh, yeah," Soos says, raking the ground as he sidles up to them. "I saw those two. Both so sparkly it kinda hurts your eyes, right?"

"What! Where?" Dipper says, his voice catching as he flails and slips off the porch.

"Down in Gleeful's Auto Sales, dude. I don't know what they were doing, though. Probably investigating some kind of mystery."

"Oh, no," Dipper moans, clutching his chin as he stares into the distance. Something rustles in the trees, the wind rushing through. "What if they were buying a car? What if they _leave town_? We'll never find them! Mabel, we've got to go!"

"Nugh," Mabel says, her face sliding further into her hands. You've got things to do and a world to bedazzle, says her inner voice. Stop moping, says the inner voice that sounds a lot like Dipper sometimes. What's that pink thing? says the first inner voice, and then three of the ponies come crashing out of the forest like a whiplash of a reminder, a call to _get off your tush, Mabel_.

"Oh man, I can't believe we forgot about those," Dipper says, before the orange one turns its attention to him and he flinches back half a step, his arms dropping to his sides.

"Er," he says. The pony lowers its head, scrapes a hoof against the ground that bursts sparks beneath it.

"Dipper," Wendy says, carefully, before there's a sound like a thousand ancient warhorses whinnying at once, and the pony is charging towards him and Dipper does nothing but scream.

"Dipper!" Mabel cries.

"Stand back!" Wendy calls, leaping down and running _towards it_ , what the heckle, Wendy? Mabel bites her lip and barely has time to jump down and grab Dipper's arm before Wendy and the pony are a foot away from each other and still running and -

Wendy ducks, slides, somehow grabs the pony's mane and in a split-second she's up and on the thing's back, her face set hard as she twists her hands in the hair and reins in it. It rears up, braying horribly as it tries to buck her off but Wendy wrinkles her nose and grips with her thighs and looks back at Dipper like she didn't just, like, save his _life_. Wendy is the _raddest_.

"What now?" she calls.

"Er," Dipper says, until Mabel nudges him like the most helpful sister that she is. "Get it back through the door it came out of? And all the other stuff?"

"On it!" Wendy says, yanking on the mane until the pony begrudgingly starts to turn around. "You guys go, me and Soos have got this. "

"Take the golf cart, dudes, I just finished fixing it up," Soos says, tossing Mabel the keys.

"Thanks, Soos!" Mabel calls, snatching them out of the air, and they throw themselves towards the cart as another pony tries to sneak up on Wendy. She kicks out and urges the orange one into the forest, its slow trot startled into a gallop.

Dipper jams the key into the ignition. A bright purple pony snaps its jaw at the awning, biting at air as they zoom off.

"If only I had some way of moving all these owls," Soos muses behind them, rubbing his chin as they hurtle down the driveway.

 

\---

 

Car chases are not nearly as exciting as she's been led to believe. Mabel puts her feet up on the dashboard, and watches the cloudless sky through the hole in the awning. The wind whips past but it's still that bright, burning blue, untouched by birds or smoke or water vapor, like anything that tries to reach up to it gets incinerated into nothing.

"He said they went west!" Dipper calls, jogging out of the car lot and sliding back into the driver's side of the golf cart. Thank _goodness_.

"Let's blow this evil popsicle stand," Mabel says, her eyes narrow slits as she sets her feet back on the floor and holds on. 

"I - yeah, okay," Dipper says, slinging his arm over the back of the seat as he reverses into a turn and sets off back down the road, heading for the main street out of town.

Mabel watches the trees flash past, arms crossed as she scours for any sign of a car or the sisters or anything, because she is on a mission with her favourite bro and she is going to _rule at it_. 

A few minutes pass in the silence of the engine puttering and the chassis jolting over every bump in the road, and then; "You okay? You're kind of... quiet," Dipper asks, glancing over.

"Yeah, I mean - it's not like we're short in crazy awesome stuff happening to us, right?" Mabel says, with a shrug, and then tilts her head a little, looking at Dipper out of the corner of her eye. "And I'd choose saving the world with you over hanging out with those two any day."

"Yeah?" Dipper says, grinning over at her.

"Yeah," Mabel says, grinning back, and then something turquoise and bulbous catches her eye. "There!" she shouts, pointing straight ahead.

Dipper slams on the brakes. The golf cart fishtails to a stop at the side of the road, a scant few feet behind the car that Sandy and Gina are standing in front of, both poring over a map spread across the bonnet.

"But that guy we asked said this way," Sandy says, frowning as she traces her finger across the paper. Mabel hurtles out of the golf cart, Dipper half a step behind her, and skids across the dry grass.

"That guy was trying to eat a rock painted like a raccoon," Gina says, shrugging when Sandy swings her glare around. "I'm just saying, maybe we should think outside that crazy box - oh, hey, it's those kids."

Sandy straightens up, raises an eyebrow and folds her arms. Yeesh, Mabel kinda gets why she's so good at getting info out of perps. Heh. Perps.

"Do either of you have a phone that works? I can't seem to get any signal out here," Sandy says, before Dipper catches his breath.

"Wait, you can't leave yet! We need you to, uh - "

"Look at this journal we've got about all the weird stuff in Gravity Falls!" Mabel chimes across. "But it's, like, super secret, so we only keep it in the woods."

The sisters look at each other.

"Yeah, okay."

"Sounds good to me," Sandy says, and looks past them. "Did you drive all the way here in _that_?"

Mabel glances back at the golf cart. It still looks a bit like it got attacked by zombies, but it’s not _that_ bad.

"Do you need a ride?" Gina asks.

Mabel opens her mouth, looks at Dipper, and closes it. "That would be great," Dipper says, smiling at her. And that's why he is totally her favourite bro.

 

\---

 

"- and then Grunkle Stan punched the pterodactyl in the face and saved Waddles!"

"That is so stupid cool," Gina says, eyes fixed on the road as they drive up to the shack. She reaches over and taps Sandy's thigh with the back of her hand. "Why do you never do anything that cool?"

"I got us the car," Sandy says, folding her arms.

"And you should be very proud of that. This it?" Gina asks, pulling the car to a stop and twisting her wrist. The engine cuts out with a cough. 

"Yep," Mabel says, and opens the door. The gravel crunches extra-loud when her shoes hit it and - no, wait, that's another tremor, quieter than before but still enough to set her bones vibrating. She yelps and clings to the car door until it passes.

"Er, we should probably hurry," Dipper says, sliding out the other side. "Mysteries don't just wait around to be discovered, right?" he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Mysteries usually just leave me a voicemail," Gina says, fixing her collar as the wind picks up, cool enough to prickle at Mabel's bare arms. She skips around to Dipper's side as he starts to lead them into the woods, and crashes her shoulder against his.

"Hey, ow. Hey," he says, with only the faintest of worry-creases between his eyebrows, so she's pretty sure he's fine. 

Trails of tire marks and hoof prints are carved into the dirt, a path of ruts that leads them deep into the forest and straight to the gap in the mushroom circle. The nearest one glitters in the high, bright light.

"Oh, nice touch," Gina says, swiping a finger through the glittery gunk before Dipper can stop her.

"Ew," Sandy says, leaning back, and then, "Don't wipe it on me! _Gina_!" Her sister darts ahead, cackling, while Sandy grimaces and tries to brush the goop off her sweater. It spreads, sinking into the fluff. "Ugh."

"I know just how to get that out!" Mabel calls.

"Yeah? Tell you what," Sandy says, pulling her sweater up and off over her head. "You keep it," she says, and tosses it to Mabel before bursting into a run, catching up with Gina with a solid punch to her arm.

"Eeeeee," Mabel whispers, clutching it to her chest. "It smells like my dreams."

Dipper sighs, and pushes her along with a hand against her back. The sisters are standing in front of the doors when they catch up - almost all of them are closed and weirdly hazy, like they're not quite in focus.

"So where's this book of yours?"

"Right, er -" Dipper trails off, desperately looking around. There's only one door left open, wedged between two trees. "The other side of that door!" he cries, pointing at it.

"Let me, just, er, open that for you," he says, running ahead and holding it wide open. Gina raises an eyebrow. There's nothing but more forest on the other side, only the slightest shimmer in the air between the trees. "Ladies first?"

"He'll grow out of it," Sandy says, curling her hand around Gina's arm and propelling them both forward, stepping straight through the doorway and, for a moment, wavering like rain on a window.

The door slams shut behind them with a solid-sounding thunk. There's a tremor, but Mabel doesn't have to even let go of Sandy's sweater in order to grab onto anything, so she's pretty sure they're getting better.

"Is that it?" Dipper asks, looking around.

"Yeah," Wendy says, puffing hair out of her face as she emerges from a thicket of trees. There's a smudge of dirt across her cheek, and her shirt looks slightly more ragged as it flaps around her waist, but all Mabel can think is that Wendy is cooler than both Sandy and Gina _combined_. "There was a dragon, but we sorted it. Right, Soos?"

A digger rolls up. "'Sup, Hambone," Soos says, sitting in the driver's seat. "I found a way to move all those owls."

There's a roar. The ground stays still, only the leaves high in the trees rustling, and Wendy frowns.

"Wait. Soos, did you shut the door?"

 

\---

 

"Case number eighty seven is closed. So, it turns out that mysterious slime may have had portal-opening powers, but it was also _really_ flammable. Mabel's not allowed near matches anymore. Also, I owe her a sweater."

**Author's Note:**

> RQOB WLJHU ILVW UHPDLQV. ZDWFKLQJ. JXDUGLQJ. SXQFKLQJ WKLQJV LQ WKH IDFH.


End file.
